Knowing You
by LosingInTranslation
Summary: His greatest fear and biggest wish…was to be known. GSR to the Max! Geek Fiction SmutAThon 2007 Entry


**_DISCLAIMER: _**Don't own anything associated with the show… I just like playing with the characters in it from time to time. Dance Monkeys! Dance!

**_RATING: M for Mature_** (AND I MEAN IT!!!)

**_PAIRINGS: _**GSR to the Max

**_SPOILERS: _**Takes place in some nebulous piece of time between the start of their relationship (after the tragic loss of the beard), but before the Sabbatical insanity (which brought the triumphant return of the beard!).

**_SUMMARY: _**His greatest fear and biggest wish…was to be known. Geek Fiction Smut-A-Thon 2007 Entry

**_ A/N: _**Double beta thanks to my longtime compatriot, and the return of the other wielder of the Red Pen of Doom

_**A/N2:**_ Not sure if this one will last very long... Due to the smut... But if it does, I'll go ahead and post "First Anniversary" here as well. :D

**_REVIEWS/COMMENTS: _**These are the way I know if people are enjoying the work or not. So, if you leave one, THANKS! And if not, I hope you found at least a little something to brighten your day, and thanks for taking the time to read.

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There were many things that he had learned about her over the years, all through casual moments that might have passed by unnoticed. Might have, had he not held onto each and every one as though he were holding onto the golden threads of time. Before, those little moments were all he had… all he would allow himself to have. Now, he had her; in his arms, in his bed, in his life. And those moments, they continued to grow into the tapestry that made up her life. He was determined to gather up all of those moments and wrap himself in them for the rest of their days.

Lately, those moments always seemed follow a display of passion between them, as they lay in each others arms, taking warmth and comfort in their shared embrace.

After the first time they made love, they discussed the culture shock she had experienced moving from Northern California to New England. There was nothing surprising about the differing climates and attitudes she had discovered, but he chuckled when she had described the prevalence and variety of hats that she found the women of Boston wearing. However, when she had gotten excited telling him about a woman on the commuter train into the city one day, he nearly fell out of bed laughing. She had described the woman and her friends as loud and boisterous. She explained how the poor fare taker had to put up with their flirting until they finally left the train, obviously on some kind of trip to the shopping district. But when she explained the woman's dress in elaborate detail he was unable to control his laughter.

"I'm serious, Gil… She looked like a cross between a middle-aged, eighties era Madonna wannabe with those gauzy gauntlets, and some kind of reject from an Ascot race in the Artic with that quilted upholstery looking, twisted fruit bowl of a hat." He had always loved seeing her on a roll, but the way she went off on the woman's appearance made his heart swell with a pride he had rarely allowed himself the pleasure of feeling. She simply had a knack for always bringing it out in him.

The second time they had made love he had learned of her disastrous history with the time honored tradition of the blind date. Once again she had him in stitches as she told him about the one with the guy who was so unbelievably anal retentive that she was fairly certain he had numbered, tagged and catalogued each hair on his head and created his part using complex trigonometry equations to be sure there was not a single abnormality. He snickered when she rolled her eyes as she went off about the "retarded, redneck, racist, reprobate" that a friend in grad school had claimed would be perfect for her. But his greatest delight had come from her depiction of the double date from hell, where a friend had used her to keep another guy's roommate distracted while she made time with that other guy. She went into great detail describing his complete lack of grooming, ambition, intelligence, ego, ethics, and any resemblance whatsoever to a real human being.

When she caught him still smiling after her little stories, she wanted to know what he was thinking about. "Just that I am incredibly grateful to your friends."

"Why is that?" she asked from her perch on his chest.

"Well, if they had been any good at fixing you up… I never would have had a chance." He was well rewarded for his insight, which led to another casual moment following their third coupling.

And so it went over the course of their fledgling relationship; they made love and they had these casual conversations in which he continued to learn about the amazing creature that had found her way into his arms and his heart. However, he quickly discerned that most of what he was learning could be seen as nothing more than trivial facts about her life: her true past, the reality of her life…that was still a mystery to him.

As they worked through the tedious process of documenting the money recovered from a botched kidnap case, he tried to occupy his mind by solving the riddle of why she had yet to open up to him about anything of substance in a very long time. He thought that he had done his best to make her feel comfortable around him, that he had shown her with his actions that he cared for her, and so he was still at a loss as to why she was still holding back in their most intimate moments.

When she paused her photographing to pull a stray lock of hair out of her face, he smiled at the sight, and she caught him. "What?"

"Nothing really… I was just thinking." And he would have left it at that, had she not set the camera down and crossed her arms in front of her. He knew that she was waiting, and her patience for waiting seemed to outweigh his anymore, so he was well aware of his chances. "Seeing you do that, it just reminded me of something…about your first day in Vegas."

He became lost in the blush that suddenly rose in her cheeks, and simply forgot where they were when he went on to explain, "I knew it was you before I even turned around, and when I saw you there with that smile on your face, it was like someone had just lifted a huge weight off of my soul. It was in that one moment that I knew why I had asked you to come to Vegas, and your abilities as a CSI were barely half of it." He quickly looked away from her gaze so that he could finally say what had taken him seven years to get out. "I needed you. Your smile, your spirit, your talent, your uncanny way of always getting past the shields I put up. No matter how hard I tried, it always came back to that one fact… I needed you. I always have."

When he was finished he was sure he had crossed a line, but more importantly, he was afraid of her reaction. He waited for her to say something, and when there was no response, he looked up to see her back at work processing the bills. He had expected fireworks, but instead he received professionalism and quiet.

They worked through the rest of their shift as though nothing had happened. He would steal a look her way from time to time, just to see if there was any discernable reaction to what he had said, but he found none. As he sat in the supervisor's meeting after shift, his mind kept drifting back to the revelation, and why she had not reacted to it in any way.

After the meeting, Catherine had given him a disapproving glare before she said, "You know… I realize these meetings aren't your thing, but if you can bother to show up, the least you could do is keep from nodding off."

"I did not nod off… I just have something else on my mind."

"Whatever… Just don't forget to sign those overtime reports before you head home." She looked down at her watch and hissed, "Damnit… I gotta get out of here. I have some conference at Lindsey's school." Without another word Catherine was on her way.

He finished up the overtime reports, fed his spider her weekly cricket feast, misted the plant on his filing cabinet and got ready to head back to his empty townhouse. Tuesdays were always his worst day of the week. The weekly supervisor's meeting, the paperwork that had to be done for payroll, and case file reviews were all done on Tuesday mornings. He never knew when he would get out of the lab, so they had long since accepted that the day was always going to be a wash, and he would go home alone.

Putting his key into the lock, he exhaled sharply before turning the knob and reluctantly pushing open the door to his townhouse. The moment he brought his eyes up to look down the hall he was confused by what he found.

The whole place was completely dark: completely dark, except for the glow that seemed to be emanating from the kitchen. Normally, a glow coming from a kitchen was a source of great alarm, but the sounds that accompanied the glow told him that it was benign.

"Damnit!" When he rounded the corner his eyes instantly told him why she was so frustrated. With a bottle of wine wedged firmly between her long and slender legs, Sara stood with the corkscrew in her hands, and only a small portion of the cork hanging from the end of it. She looked up the moment he started to chuckle. "Damnit! It should've taken you at least another forty-five minutes with that stack on your desk."

He worked to stifle the laughter that the look on her face was bringing out in him as he walked toward her. "Yes, well, I cheated." He held out his hands for the bottle and the corkscrew.

She reluctantly handed them over when she asked, "How'd you do that?"

He carefully worked to remove the last of the cork and shrugged when he answered, "Simply, really… I just left most of it for Catherine to do tonight."

She screwed up her mouth as she fought the laughter his comment elicited. "You know, I am suddenly very happy that I'm not working tonight."

After he retrieved the rest of the cork he looked back at the table and found the source of the glow with the flickering candles laid out there. "So, what's ah…the occasion?"

She took everything from his hands and shrugged as she moved back to the counter when she said, "No occasion… I just thought it might be nice to do something different for a change."

"While I appreciate the thought, we have be-"

"Do me a favor, and take these to the table please?" She handed him back the bottle, along with a pair of wine glasses, but it was the look on her face that truly caused his breath to catch in his throat. If he were pressed to pick a single word for that look, smoldering would always be the word he chose.

"Ah…yeah, sure." He turned away before he became lost in her warm brown eyes. When he finally reached the table, he found a full spread of cheeses and fruits, but what delighted him more than anything was the small plate of smoked meats arranged into little sandwiches sitting on one side of the table.

"Okay, now I know I didn't have anything like this in the house… Where'd you ge-"

"I stopped by that little international market you like on my way over. When I was getting the cheese, Sal showed me that stuff and I asked him to make up a little combo for you." She came up behind him and used her hands on his hips to push him towards his seat. "I went with the smoked salmon and some soda crackers for me." They both sat down at the same time and she said, "I might not be much of a cook, but I am at least capable of taking something out of a box."

He took her hand for a moment and squeezed it as he said, "There are no complaints here… Thank you." She squeezed back and held his gaze. "I was not expecting any of this, and frankly, I needed it."

"Well, I have to admit…this was mostly selfish." As he raised an eyebrow to question her statement, he delighted in the slight blush that appeared on her face. "I ah, got tired of sleeping alone on Tuesdays."

He grinned at the tone of her voice and the implication of her words. As they proceeded to eat the meal she had prepared for them, he thought about what she said. They had been moving along on autopilot for months, never deviating from their patterns. One day at the townhouse, the next at her apartment, shared days off were usually spent either out of town or curled up on one of their couches in between bouts of passion, and Tuesdays were spent apart. He really hated Tuesdays.

Just as that thought went through his mind, he remembered something she had said earlier. "You have tonight off?"

Her mouth instantly screwed up into that delightful expression he had always found completely irresistible. She got up from the table and started to clear the dishes, but she did not answer him.

Her lack of an answer puzzled him, and he wondered just _when _she had requested the night off. When he got up from the table, he took the empty bottle of wine and the last of the cheese with him into the kitchen. "Sara… When did you request tonight off?"

She kept her back to him as she rinsed off the dishes, and still she was quiet.

After he placed the cheese into a sealed container and dropped it into the fridge, he became determined to get an answer. He walked up behind her and placed his hands atop her shoulders. "Sara?"

She sighed at the contact and stopped rinsing out the wine glass for a moment before she finally said, "I told Catherine I needed the night off before she went into the meeting this morning."

He shook his head not knowing why she would have done that, knowing that he had already taken the night off. They had both decided to keep their relationship out of work, even though it was often difficult, they were convinced it would only make things even more complicated. "What reason did you give?"

She shrugged as she looked back at him and said, "I didn't. She said I had some personal time I needed to use before I lost it anyway." She turned around to face him and put her hands on his waist when she said, "Don't worry. She told me make sure I got some sleep while I was off…because she thinks that new boyfriend of mine needs to give me a break." He immediately tensed at the mention of a boyfriend and then she kissed his chin before she continued with, "And she said she wants to meet him, because she has money in the pool on what he looks like."

Slowly, a satisfied grin crept into the corner of his mouth and he wrapped his arms around her and said, "I wonder why I didn't know about this pool." The waggle of his eyebrows elicited the most endearing giggle from the woman in his arms, and it made him smile outright.

"Yeah, because how many people would have bet on a brooding, silver haired, clean shaven, slimmed down, deliciously handsome specimen of manhood?" She kissed him full on that time and he savored every second of it.

As she pulled away, he thought about her description. "What do you mean, 'brooding?'"

She giggled again and kissed his slightly protruding bottom lip. "Did I say brooding? Maybe I should have said pouting."

The feel of her body pressed into his was enough to distract him from any further rational thought, and the touch of her lips on his, along with the heat that generated between them was more than enough to occupy every brain cell in his head.

He looked down into her eyes, and poured every ounce of his desire for her into his gaze. Finally, he could wait no longer and lowered his lips onto hers, fervently hoping that his actions told her everything he had never been able to say with words.

She gladly accepted his kiss and invited him in further as her lips parted, allowing his tongue access to taste her fully. Sweet, tender and undeniably precious were those first moments between them, the moments before the hunger took over his carefully tended control and he became the primal man that he had long feared would emerge.

The most treasured part of his newfound relationship with the amazing being in his embrace was that she delighted in his loss of control, and even encouraged it. In the beginning, he had worried that he was losing more than his tightly held control, that he was losing his self respect, but she never held it over him or took advantage of his vulnerability in those moments. She seemed to simply understand his concerns and needs, and left it at that. Soon, he found that he no longer worried about losing control, because he trusted her. He trusted her more than he had ever trusted another living soul. And that trust made every moment with her precious to him.

With her hands roaming over his back, he broke his hold on her mouth and left her gasping for air as he started to kiss his way down her neck. She held onto him as his body pressed her into the kitchen counter, and as he had made his way to the crook of her neck, he decided that they needed a change of scenery.

There was a tiny yelp of surprise as he lifted her into his arms, her legs dangling barely an inch from the floor. Once the surprise was gone, she pulled herself to him with her arms around his neck and then drew her legs up to wrap tightly around his waist as he turned them out of the kitchen.

The journey to the bedroom seemed to last forever, but he used the time to his advantage as his mouth tasted every inch of her that it could reach. It was during times like this that he would find himself unable to get close enough to her. Fortunately, he found that she felt much the same way, and they both feverishly worked to close that perceived distance between them with their hands and their lips.

When they finally reached the bed, they unceremoniously fell into the mattress, still wrapped up with each other. With his weight pressed into her, he had effectively trapped her in his embrace. He pulled open her shirt and brought his lips down to the flushed and tender skin resting over her sternum. He was determined to kiss each and every freckled centimeter of flesh he could, as he furiously worked to remove her shirt.

Any semblance of control he might have had before was wiped away when they were together this way. With the feel of her body beneath him, the press of her long fingers into his flesh, the sensation of her heated breath passing over his skin, he lost himself in her, in their coupling, in the passion of those precious moments. And in that passion there was always a sense of urgency.

Working with that urgency, he quickly removed her clothes, tossing them onto the floor behind him as he stripped her. When he looked back on her bare body his breath caught in his throat. She lay before him in full glory, filled with the same desire that fueled his own fires, simply waiting for him, just as she had always done.

He was overcome with his need for her and his lips crushed into hers, desperate for the connection of their bodies in anyway he could get. As his mouth continued to assault hers, she worked her slender fingers into his hair and encouraged him to deepen their connection. However, his baser self had already begun to take control of his actions and he took her hands into his and moved them to rest above her head.

He sat up and broke the contact of their lips, his breathing coming in short, impassioned pants as he looked down at her writhing form. He took one of her hands and brought it up to his lips, where he kissed into her palm, before he returned it to lay with the other. But that time his lips followed the arms, as he laid gentle kisses onto each of her wrists.

With one hand, he held her arms at the wrists in place above her head and began to kiss his way down the length of her right arm. When he reached the elbow, the proximity to her face was too much, and he began to trail his lips down from her temple to her cheek and lips, as his fingers glided down the rest of her arm to her side.

He delighted in the fact that his gentle touch had caused gooseflesh to rise where it passed over her skin. With the backs of his fingers, he tickled over each rib at her side, and then he brought his hand over to run his warm, calloused palms across the skin below her bare breasts. His thumb instinctively grazed the underside of her breast, bringing a stuttered whimper from Sara's throat and touching something deep inside of his soul.

When his lips finally left hers to descend upon her chest, his other hand released her wrists. He gripped her with both hands, just beneath the arms and lifted her further up onto the bed, as he crawled up with her, his mouth never losing contact with her delicate flesh. Once they were in the center of the bed, his mouth continued its southward journey until it reached its first goal, and he enveloped one of her nipples with his kiss-swollen lips. Her back arched into him with the feel of his heated mouth devouring her breast.

The guttural moans that escaped Sara's throat told him that he was on the right path, and so he devoted equal attention to the other breast, as his free hand sought out other playgrounds. He ran his thick hands up under her back and down to the tender swell of her ass where he laid claim to flesh with a firm squeeze as he pulled her closer to him.

His mouth was suddenly overcome with wanderlust, and it began its descent to her belly, which elicited further moans from the delightful woman under his ministrations. He traced each line of definition with his tongue, stopping to kiss each freckle and dip over her stomach as he went along. When he began to near his destination, he could feel his shirt becoming tangled under his arms and he sat straight up as he ripped the shirt open, pulled it off with great force and threw into the unknown without any regard to its condition. As he quickly lowered himself back to her body, he found that she was trembling, and he moved back to her face to offer her a kiss of reassurance; to further demonstrate to her his promise of love. She melted into the kiss and he knew that she was content in his display.

His confidence returned in full force, and he immediately went back to his southerly wanderings. When he finally reached the top of her thighs, he was overcome with his adoration of her long, luscious legs, and he trailed his lips down the entire length of her right leg, stopping at the ankle to pay proper tribute to the magnificence of its beauty with his kisses and the press of his bare cheek into the delicious and tender flesh he found there. Her legs had long been an altar at which he longed to worship for many years, and for him to have that privilege never ceased to amaze and thrill him.

Once proper tribute had been paid to her marvelous legs, Grissom's hunger for her other marvels took over his thoughts and drives once again. His ascent along the inside of her left leg with his lips was slow, but worth every agonizing moment, as he could feel the tension rising beneath her flesh and between his own legs. He stopped himself when he reached the center of her thigh, and drew in a deep and calming breath. The trouble came when the air that entered through his nostrils carried with it her natural scent and the evidence of her intense arousal.

Grissom had long been a fan of the natural scents of man (and especially woman), but it was not until he had accepted Sara into his life that he had come to treasure it with the same regard he gave to the likes of Shakespeare and Darwin. To him, she smelled of pure and decadent delights, like sweet cream and cinnamon, like cotton candy, like the most exquisite divinity. It was a scent that, once within his reach, caused him to become undeniably lost in her.

Normally, he would have already delved into that delicious and cherished part of her center, preparing her for his onslaught. But this time was different. This was his chance to show her how precious and sacred she was to him. He planned to do everything in his power to please and worship her in the act of their coupling. He had already told her that he needed her, and now he needed to prove it to her, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

With his cheek pressed firmly along the inside of her thigh, he glided his way to the junction of her legs. When he came to the breech, he slid his hands along the outside of her thighs and then down her hips to slip in underneath her ass, giving himself all of the access and leverage he would need for his next move.

He felt the tension build even higher within her and it caused a sly grin to appear at the corner of his mouth. She was more than ready for him, but he had one last stall tactic to build her up further. He brought his lips together and gently blew his breath over her hypersensitive flesh, sending a million shivers up through her already quivering body, and eliciting the most pitiful simpering from the beautiful creature in his grasp.

Finally, the anticipation became too much, and he surged forward, bringing his mouth to close over the apex of her folds, his tongue immediately darting out to caress her sensitive nub. It quickly became evident that his grip on her was of dire importance as she instantly bucked at the contact. Before long, the ministrations of his lips and tongue had her writhing about in a rhythmic thrashing, forcing him to hold her tightly to his face.

It took every ounce of his now-strained control to not give into his baser needs as she began to climax under the power of his voracious appetite for her. Her whimpers were transformed into moans and gasps, with his name tied to each one, and fueled his desire for her even more.

With her pleading whimpers assaulting his ears, the moment arrived when he could no longer hold himself back. He sucked her nub into his mouth once more, lightly grazing it through his teeth before he finally released her and stood up from the bed. He had left his own pants on to act as a reminder and an inhibitor, but their usefulness was indeed at an end. He made very quick work of the pants and tossed them, along with his shorts to some unknown place behind him. They no longer served any purpose, and he was focused solely on the still quivering beauty before him.

He knelt on the bed and crawled his way back to the object of his desire, kissing and nibbling a trail back to her lips, until his body was once again covering hers. With his solid weight pressing her into the bed, he propped himself up with his elbows and then captured her mouth in a passionate and highly charged kiss, forcing them both to fight for air. When his lips lost their hold on her, his eyes opened, and he found those rich brandy pools staring up at him, completely filled with her obvious desire for him. He could not imagine why, but he felt an overpowering need to lay kisses down onto her eyes, and as he leaned into her, her lids fluttered closed to grant him that gift.

When he lifted back up, she slowly opened her eyes once more and found his gaze instantly. He was certain that he could see years of worry and pain melting away from those dark orbs as he held her attention in that moment. As the faint and tender smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, he felt his heart constrict with the power of that expression on his soul.

She reached her arms up and wrapped them around his neck, pulling herself up to him and laying the lightest of kisses across his bare chin, and then trailed them down along his jaw until she reached his ear. When he heard her breathy plea, he was lost once again in the depth of his desire.

With the comfort that came from experience, he slowly slid into her center, feeling her arms grasp tightly to his neck as she held onto him with all of her might. He slipped his arms underneath her back and rested his weight on his elbows before moving to thrust into her.

Grissom dropped his mouth down into the crook of her neck and drew from the warmth of her embrace and as he began to move inside of her. Her left leg grazed over the back of his right calf, making its ascent with each stroke, until it rested around his back, giving him full and unrestrained access to deepen his thrusts, while holding her to him as closely as she could.

Her strained and gasping words into his ear urged him on, building his arousal and need with each touch of her breath over his skin. The energy they were expending in their union dripped from their superheated skin in the form of perspiration. Their skin, even slicked with sweat, burned from the friction they created through their fiery joining.

His entire world evaporated in those moments, dwindling down to nothing but that small space in which they were entwined. He could hear only their panting breaths, see only her skin, feel only her body pressed into him, surrounding him, smell only the evidence of their arousal, and taste only the salt on her skin. She was his world, his life, his present, his past, his future, his everything. When he felt her begin to contract around him on the next thrust it all exploded into infinite time and space, leaving him floating in the abyss, everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

When he finally came back to himself, he was collapsed on top of her, as she slowly massaged her fingers through his closely cropped hair. A smile crept across his lips, and he felt the world come back into focus. His arms moved to take her up into his embrace and then he rolled them over onto his side.

He felt her smile into his neck, and he moved his right hand up to stroke her hair, as his left continued to hold her to his body. Grissom moved his head back until he could see her face once again, and he found her looking back at him with a weary smile. "Welcome back."

He smirked at her usual remark. She had been giving him the same greeting since that first time they had shared his bed. It had become a ritual of sorts, just her way of letting him know that everything was okay, that he was safe with her, that she understood his loss of control, and that she was still there waiting for him to return to himself.

"Hi." He bent his head down to kiss her forehead and then pulled her closer to him.

It was usually in those moments that she would begin to talk, to tell him some story from her past. But she simply rested her head on his chest, breathing slowly in and out. When the silence finally became too much for him, he asked, "Sara?"

"Hmmmm…" She snuggled in under his arm as he lay back in the bed.

He took a deep breath and forged ahead, "Not feeling like talking today?"

She pushed up from his chest to look him right in the eye. "That's a strange question."

He sat up a little and scooted back until he got the pillow under his shoulders. "Well, usually I am treated to a little glimpse into your life, um…after."

She smirked at his obvious discomfort with the topic, but then he watched as a shy blush crept its way into her cheeks. Sara fell back into his chest and began to nervously trace circles around his nipple. "I do have something of a reputation for over-talking around you, you know."

He knew it was more than that, and he tried to find out what it was, "Sar-"

"I was afraid of the silence, and I didn't want you to think I didn't trust you… so I guess I tried to fill the space with stories." She stopped her fingers for an instant, and then finally blurted out, "And I figured if I kept talking, you would be too polite to ask me to leave."

The breath he had not been aware he was holding was quickly expelled in the sigh he released. "And to think… I was worried that you were trying to find a way to make me fall asleep so you could slip away quietly."

She instantly thumped his chest at the joke, but he pulled her into his embrace and started another tradition, as he told her about the first time he went to a Cubs game. They took turns sharing stories until they both drifted off to sleep, soundly in each other's arms.


End file.
